Asshat of the Year: John McCain Opposes Military Suicide Prevention Bill

Politically, John McCain rides high on his stint in the military, but for someone who purports to support those in the service, he spends a lot of time blocking bills to help them. The latest case in point: he's led the charge in stripping suicide prevention provisions in the defense authorization bill, denying potentially thousands of service members mental health care. According to Rep. Rush Holt, who introduced the legislation meant to prevent military suicides, McCain wasn't shy about voicing his opposition:

"Twice now, the Senate has stripped this legislation from our defense bill," Holt told The Huffington Post Tuesday. "It's hard to understand why. I know for a fact, because he told me, that Sen. McCain doesn't support it. Whether he's the only one, I don't know. But there was no effort to try to improve the language or negotiate changes; it was just rejected, and I think that is not only bad policy, but it's cruel. It's cruel to the families that are struggling with catastrophic mental health problems."

In November 2009, it was reported that more service members died from suicide than from fighting in Afghanistan.

The thing is, I've seen some very sweet demented patients who were formerly not very nice, while others who were formerly civilized and polite become very disturbed and uninhibited when their frontal lobe goes, and require megadoses of sedatives/antipsychotics to control their behavior and protect themselves and the staff.

If this is dementia, he's giving dementia a bad name.Vindictiveness is more like it (why can't he be more like John Kerry?):

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-22/john-mccains-dont-ask-dont-tell-dream-votes-and-his-lasting-anger/David Berman, a political science professor at Arizona State University and a longtime McCain observer, said the senator cannot let go on issues like DADT and START because of lingering resentment about Obama's win. "He has been on a tear to make Obama look less than favorable, to put it mildly, and I think he is a little bit bitter about the election," he said. "I think he is a very proud man, he was very upset he didn't do better, and resents this young man with very little experience beat him in the last election...He doesn't think of Obama as someone qualified to be commander in chief."..."He doesn't mind popping people in the nose and taking the consequences," he said. "My opinion is that it just depends on who is getting popped in the nose. For a long time there it was various elements of the Republican Party and a lot of people, especially in the media, loved that. They saw it as courageous. He didn't see it as courageous; he always does what he wants to do. Now he's doing what he wants to do."